Up-Coming Events

Humans are living longer but are not necessarily healthier. The latest research on human health and longevity has identified factors that control the aging process. By increasing our understanding of the biology of aging, we are beginning to identify interventions that will significantly extend the years of health, happiness, and productivity.

Why do some 60-year-olds look/feel 40, and some 40-year-olds look/feel 60? Telomeres and telomerase have much to do with it, and they're under our control — at least partly! Please join Nobel biochemist Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and health psychologist Dr. Elissa Epel as they discuss key elements of their new book The Telomere Effect — A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, & Longer.

Elizabeth Blackburn is president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Elissa Epel is founding director of UCSF's Center on Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment. Their discussion will be moderated by syndicated talk-show host Angie Coiro.

HOW: This event is produced by The Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley, with help from Wonderfest and the Oshman Family JCC. For a hefty ticket DISCOUNT, use promo code WONDERFEST at the ticketing website below.

One in a million doesn’t even come close! Not when we’re talking about the odds that you would happen to be alive today, on this particular planet, hurtling through space. Almost 14 billion years of cosmic history, more than 4 billion years of Earth history, and a couple million years of human history, has led to you. Legendary geophysicist Walter Alvarez discusses the "big picture" insights in his latest book, A Most Improbably Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves.

Time may be — simultaneously! — both the most mundane and the most mysterious feature of our universe. Wonderfest and Bookshop West Portal present The New Yorker’s Alan Burdick in discussion of his new book, Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation. What is time, really? Do children experience it the same way adults do? Why does it seem to slow down when we’re bored and speed by as we get older? How do scientists measure it, and why is probability involved? How and why does time fly?

Alan Burdick is a staff writer and former senior editor at The New Yorker; he is also a frequent contributor to Elements, the magazine's science-and-tech blog. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Discover, and Best American Science and Nature Writing. His first book, Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Overseas Press Club Award for environmental reporting. [Photo by Laura Rose]